Pak Protector
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Pak Breeders and Pak Protectors are two forms of fictional life in Larry Niven's Known Space universe. The protector form of the species is the result of a peramorphic transformation brought about in a breeder by the plant known as Tree-of-Life.
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[edit] The Pak species
The Pak species evolved on a planet near the core of the galaxy. Increased radiation levels at the core cause severe mutations that can destabilize the evolutionary process. As a result, the Pak evolved a mechanism to eliminate dangerous mutations from the population. That mechanism is the protector stage.
Pak go through three stages of development: Child, Breeder and Protector.
Pak Children are sexually immature and are primarily cared for by their Breeder parents.
Pak Breeders are sexually mature, unintelligent and sub-sentient primates essentially identical to Homo habilis. Towards the end of their reproductive life, Pak Breeders acquire a craving for a root containing a symbiotic virus that triggers the transformation to the Protector stage.
Pak Protectors are highly sensitive to the smell of their close relatives and 'weed out' those that smell wrong, which may indicate a potentially dangerous mutation. This weeding also suppressed positive mutations, essentially halting Pak evolution. Protectors are fully sentient, and are far more intelligent than ordinary humans, possessing "diamond like" clarity of thought. However, this superior intelligence only serves a Pak Protector's hard-wired instincts to protect its bloodline at any costs, including resorting to war, mass murder, or genocide.
[edit] Tree-of-Life
Tree-of-Life is a bush whose smell is unnoticeable or unpleasant to breeders until they reach about 35 Pak years (or 42 human years, i.e. early middle age); after that, the smell suddenly becomes irresistible. The breeder gorges on the root, infecting himself with a symbiotic virus in the root and triggering the transition. The age window for the metamorphosis is relatively narrow. If a breeder is just a few years past early middle age, the virus in the root will kill him instead. (This is not a problem on the Pak homeworld, where Tree-of-Life is readily available to any breeder that reaches the age of transition.) Even if too old, hominid breeders are still irresistibly attracted to the root's smell.
After consuming Tree-of-Life root, Pak breeder forms (and their offshoots, such as humans) turn into the Pak Protector form, which involves reconfiguration of the anatomy, including the acquisition of a leathery armor or exoskeleton, strong enough to turn a copper knife. Joints swell until the creature becomes "a parody of the human form done in cantaloupes and coconuts". This expands the leverage available to muscles by increasing the moment arm: the protector can lift 10 times its own weight. Genitalia vanish, and a second two-chambered heart forms in the groin. Fingernails turn into retractile claws. Teeth fall out, and lips fuse; the resulting structure is a sort of bony beak. The brain grows to an enormous size; the resulting mind, even starting from something as "unintelligent" as a chimp, becomes far more intelligent than a human mind. The intelligence of the Protector stage of a Pak or Pak offshoot is dependent on the intelligence of the breeder stage - as such, the Protector form of a sentient breeder will generally be more intelligent than a Protector of a sub-sentient breeder species. Humans who convert into protectors have intellects that are beyond human comprehension (Louis Wu described the mind of a Protector as having "diamond" precision, insight, and clarity - breeder level thinking is "fuzzy" in comparison). All the breeder's hair falls out and the head acquires a bony ridge to protect the newly-expanded cranium. Pak Protectors also acquire an extended lifespan, and can live tens of thousands of earth years. However, most protectors die as the direct or indirect result of conflict with other protectors, so death from old age is almost unknown in the Pak culture.
Once the transformation is complete, a Pak Protector must periodically consume more Tree-of-Life root to maintain the virus in its body. Without the virus, the protector will weaken and die. A protector can survive indefinitely on Tree-of-Life root, although it can eat other types of food provided Tree-of-Life root is a regular part of its diet.
[edit] Protector behavior
Pak Protectors have an in-built need to look after (or protect, hence the name) close relatives of their family. Protectors recognize their own breeder family line by scent, and are instinctively compelled to act in the best interests of breeder relatives. Pak Protectors will fight among themselves to procure land and resources for their respective breeder populations, often leading to the violent deaths of entire Pak family lines. A Pak Protector with no breeders to protect will generally stop eating and quickly starve, although some breederless protectors have avoided this fate by adopting the entire Pak race, and devoting themselves to activities that benefit the species as a whole.
Because of his vastly increased intelligence, a protector will always see the best answer to any question for a given set of conditions. If that answer results in an advantage for his breeder descendants, he will instinctively act upon it. In effect, protectors have little free will as humans would think of the term. Consequently, Pak Protectors are by nature xenophobic and warlike, inherently incapable of holding abstract moral principles and ruthless beyond measure towards all Paks who are not their own descendants or - in the case of the most "broadminded" Protectors, i.e. those who adopted the entire Pak species - to members of all other species. Pak Protectors from different families will only cooperate in a shared goal until one family sees some advantage in betraying the rest, and thus the Pak homeworld is in a constant state of war.
A human turned protector will find himself compelled to perform actions that he would consider morally reprehensible as a breeder. For example, as a Protector, Jack Brennan commits genocide by engineering an ice asteroid strike on the planet Mars, thus exterminating the Martian race. To Brennan as a Protector, it is self-evident that the Martians' continued existence is a potential threat to humanity. Brennan also releases a genetically modified Tree-of-Life virus on the human colony of Home, transforming everyone between ages 40 and 60 into a protector, and killing the remaining colonists. Millions of humans die as a result of Brennan's cold-blooded calculation that the colony's destruction is necessary to create an army of childless human protectors to battle an invading Pak fleet. To Brennan, the deaths of innocent people are a logical trade-off to preserve the bulk of humanity and his descendants on Earth. Yet Brennan is unable to kill his own breeder descendant, Roy Truesdale. Instead, Truesdale kills Brennan in an attempt to save the people of Home once he realizes Brennan's intention; however, after he is transformed into a protector, Truesdale personally completes Brennan's plan.
Niven explains much of ARM behavior in his Future History, by revealing in Ringworld's Children that the ARM may be run by at least one Protector and that Boosterspice (which dramatically prolongs human lifespan) is derived from Tree-of-Life.
[edit] The Pak and Humanity
Humans are descended from a colony of Pak breeders that were stranded on Earth 2.5 million years ago. The protectors that built the colony ship died when their Tree-of-Life crops failed. The Tree-of-Life virus in the root requires thallium in the soil to survive and Earth is not adequately thallious; consequently all of Earth's Pak Protectors died out millennia ago, allowing the original Pak breeder form (Homo habilis) to evolve into modern humanity (Homo sapiens). Other Earth primates (such as gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans) are also descended from the original colony of Pak breeders, and could also transform to protector form if Tree-of-Life root were available to them.
It is widely accepted that the Ringworld was built by Pak Protectors — this is confirmed by the statements of a character in Ringworld's Children who claims to be one of the original builders — and populated by Pak breeders. The Pak Protectors dwindled in numbers until they were no longer able to maintain the genetic purity of the breeder forms and the breeders eventually evolved into all the other hominids of the Ringworld that one sees in Larry Niven's novels.
[edit] Narrative purpose
Niven has stated in other writings that he invented the Protectors as a thought experiment to explain the common effects of aging on humans, and to create a fictional evolutionary explanation for human's long lives after females have passed reproductive age. Accordingly, most of the positive attributes of Protectors are based on negative human aging effects: sore joints, poor circulation, wrinkled skin, lack of sex drive, and rotting teeth are all turned to advantage during the shift from Breeder to Protector.
